Burning Away
by Blue Zombie
Summary: In this story Albert decides the best thing for Craig is if he is no longer in Craig's life.So he fakes his death with the car crash and then goes on to have another life,a new identity.That kind of thing.AlbertPOV.Review?Lack of reviews depressing me.
1. Chapter 1

Nothing was changing. My job was still stressful beyond belief. I thought I could control my anger. I thought the anger management classes had helped. I thought I could start to see Craig again and rebuild our relationship. I was wrong. Nothing had changed. Deep set patterns would take more than a school year to fix. Maybe a lifetime.

When I saw Craig again I felt the anger start to slip. The drink on the table without a coaster. It was a little thing, I knew that. But that would leave a ring on the table and how many times had I told him? How many times? Too many to count. I could feel the anger start to slip, like a car going fast in the rain on a tight turn. Soon there is no control.

And he's late to dinner, the dinner I wanted to tell him about the trip to Europe. It was time for him to come home. But I see that look on his face. That stubborn look just like when he came to pick up his stuff and he was looking down at me from the top of the stairs. I see the symbolism. He's above me. Morally, emotionally, however else. And maybe he is. Because he is and was right. I beat him. Not slaps or spanks or normal sort of punishment but beat. Kicking and punching and strapping and I know that that is unacceptable. That is why I allowed him to go to Joey's without a fight. I could have fought. I have a lot of money and money can buy excellent legal counsel. I could have got it so that Joey would never have been allowed to see him. But I didn't do that. I wanted what was best for my son. I still want that.

At that dinner I felt the anger rise, just like it always did. Nothing would feel better than punching him. Craig, my son, the person I love most in all the world. I wanted to hurt him because he just infuriated me. I clenched my hands into fists and stormed out of that restaurant. I couldn't be around him. The anger management classes said if you feel the anger getting out of control then leave. Leave until you've calmed down. So I left. But he followed me. He said it wasn't fair, and I heard that whining in his voice and I just couldn't help myself.

"Are you talking to me or are you talking to Joey?" Walking fast, being sarcastic to him, hurting him. I knew I was. I just couldn't help it.

He kept it up, kept at me. I had tried to leave.

"You'll settle for some little goth girl and someday you'll take over the car lot," I said, and he shoved me.

"Don't talk about Ashley like that!" His face twisted in anger. I turned around and hit him so hard he fell to the ground and then I knew. I knew it wasn't ever going to change even before he screamed that at me, and I told him he always screws up but I didn't mean that. It was me. I was projecting my behavior and actions onto him.

"It won't change," he said, his palms hitting the window of my car, "ever!"

I squealed away. That would be the last I'd ever see him. The last I'd ever see my son. His angry tear stained face, bleeding because I hit him and cut him with my ring. It was what would be best for him.

I drove fast, weaving in and out of traffic, daring some cop to pull me over. I took the ring off of my finger and tossed it out the window, saw it bouncing and rolling on the road between the cars. I hated myself. I felt such a deep loathing for myself that it was barely credible. It would be best for Craig to just live with Joey. To not have the complication of me. To live with Joey and Angela and to start to heal from the trauma I'd put him through. That would be the last thing I could do for him and I intended to do it. I was going to disappear.

I drove, slowing down, the plan forming in my mind. I was out on deserted roads now, no traffic, barely any street lights. If I crashed the car just a certain way it would catch fire, and all evidence of who was or wasn't inside would burn away. Then Craig would be free of me.

There was a jersey barrier ahead, and I tied the heavy book to the accelerator and dropped the car into drive. It ran full speed into the barrier and burst into flames. I watched it for awhile, imagining how the orange flickery glow was playing across my features. Then I slowly walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

I could feel the heat from the flames even as I walked away. It would be nothing to abandon my old life. My stressful job, my lack of a love life, my relationship with my son strained and nearly non-existent. There was nothing there for me anymore. That old life was burning up in the wreckage of my lexus.

In the darkness on the side of the highway I snuck away as the rescue vehicles raced to the scene. There was no one to save. Albert Manning was better off dead. I'd become someone new, someone who didn't have all those complications to burn away.

I had plenty of money with me, and of course the credit cards would be no good. I could get most of my money out with the atm before such a transaction would be suspicious, and the first atm machine I saw I bee-lined for and punched in the numbers, took the cash. In the darkness, in the artificial light of the atm kiosk, I felt a weight lifting off of me. No more surgeries, no more hospital employees to deal with, no more patients. No more agonizing over Craig and what I had done to him, no more agonizing over his state of mind, his fragile psyche. Now that father was dead, no longer an issue for him. I could see that he was bonding with Joey. It felt like a caustic solution in my veins, searing and tearing pain. Joey Jeremiah. I hated him. First he took Julia and now Craig but if I really looked at it I knew that I had caused them to leave. I had treated them badly and they had left. It wasn't Joey's fault. It was mine.

I walked, trying to leave that old life behind. I still thought of Craig, of his angry and tear stained face, how he yelled back at me. He'd never done that before. And he was right. I'd tried to change and had failed miserably. The darkness enveloped me and I kind of felt like a vampire, some sinful creature who couldn't help their vile nature. I was the enemy in Craig's story of his life. The villain. I knew about the whole gestalt of it, I was the one who beat him, who wouldn't let him see his sister or talk about his mother. I was the one he had feared and he would, to some extent, always fear me. Maybe a quick movement or a similar tone of voice would recall it to him like an acid flashback and he'd flinch away, and his eyes would glaze as he remembered something from his past.

What would it lead to for him? What would be the horrible sequela of how I had treated him? Would he be overly fearful, thinking Joey would react to his transgressions as I had? Would he himself become violent? Acting it out at school or with girlfriends or his own children? Would he start abusing substances? Would he develop some form of a mental illness that the trauma of abuse had in part triggered? Any or all of these were possibilities. I felt the guilt and shame of that like a knife going right through me.

I walked, still able to feel the heat from the blaze, my car and my life up in flames. I saw a hotel and headed toward it, its lighted sign a little beacon in this dark night.


	3. Chapter 3

Obscurity. I felt it as I laid on the hotel bed and watched T.V. It was an old T.V. with pixels as big as my hand. The bedspread was also old, faded and washed hundreds of times. The pattern reminded me of the patterns of things from the late 50's, early 60's.

I'd lost my faith. I was like that priest on the run in Mexico, just mouthing the holy words that no longer had any meaning, everyone misinterpreting everything I said. I couldn't change, not where Craig was concerned.

I used to think that I could do anything. Maybe that comes from doing well in school, having concepts come effortlessly. Memorizing lists of words as easily as Mozart could run through the scales. Understanding the art of test taking, being able to figure out the answer even when I didn't know the answer. In school I could do no wrong. In my job I could do no wrong. It was just my personal life that had all the wrong, all the holes, all the fault and the blame laid directly at my feet.

I had thought sleep wouldn't come but I felt it overtaking me as I watched the mindless infomercials that I couldn't be bothered to change. The unfamiliar bed, the unfamiliar surroundings. From here on out everything would be unfamiliar. And that didn't sound bad at all.

1234567890

I woke up to the light rain hitting the hotel windows. I blinked the sleep from my eyes and sat up. I could still smell the smoke on my clothes. I stumbled toward the shower. Hotel showers were always a gamble. It was the pressure. You never knew where you stood.

This shower had pressure like a fire hose and I stood in its harsh spray, everything slightly blurry without my glasses. Craig. I couldn't get over how I had failed him. Him and Julia both.

Dressed in my smoky clothes, sipping weak hotel coffee, hiding behind a newspaper. I'd need new clothes. I'd need a new profession, one where I could come and go, one where I wouldn't need documents and proof of identity.

I left the hotel, squared up the bill. I had to get as far from here as I could. I thought maybe Vancouver would do. But in a day or two. For now I'd just lay low on the outskirts of Toronto, I'd buy some new clothes and drift around, seeing if I could come up with a plan. A plan to bury Albert and resurrect someone else.

01234567890

In the mall, wearing my new, more casual clothes, I walked past the music shop. No more suits for me. No more slicked back hair. Maybe I'd get rid of the glasses, wear contacts, pierce my ears and my nose. I no longer had any responsibilities and I was going to dress the part.

In the music shop the guitar caught my eye. I had dabbled with the guitar when I was in college, had one hanging around the house for the longest time. I picked it up and strummed a few chords. I liked the way it sounded. It wasn't an expensive guitar. Not at all. I bought it.

At the new hotel I played the guitar in my room. I'd need to learn more. I'd need to learn all the techniques. I'd study it like I studied for the medical boards. Studying was something I knew, something I could do. It was soothing, almost.

For now, the couple of songs I knew ringing out in the hotel room, the T.V. on but muted, the light fading from the sky, for now this was just fine.


	4. Chapter 4

I bought books on guitar playing but I would need a teacher. I was at such a beginning level with this that I needed a teacher to fill in some of the gaps. I booked my hotel room for the next few nights and set off in search of a guitar teacher.

Walking along, head down, I thought of Craig. I was no good for him. I loved him, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, even myself. But that love was not preventing me from hurting him. Now that I was gone I could admit what I'd done. I'd beaten him. Beaten. I'd seen the scared look in his eyes over and over, those wide eyed stares, his fast breathing, his heart pounding in his chest. All the reactions of fear and terror and I'd caused that. I caused it in my own child, my only child. It was unforgivable.

If I couldn't forgive myself how could he ever forgive me? I knew something of psychology. The father son dynamic. He wanted my approval, seeked it, yearned for it, and I denied it to him. The physical violence made him feel worthless. He was 14. I'd been hurting him like this, true beatings, since he was 11. He wasn't at an age where he could externalize the blame. He probably told people, if anyone asked, that it was his fault. That he caused my anger and my reactions. That he was beaten because he deserved it.

Walking, hearing my footsteps on the sidewalk, feeling the wind in my hair and against my cheeks. Joey was better for him. He was happier with Joey. I didn't know why this was so. Joey was more of a nurturer than I was. Nurturing didn't make up any part of my personality. It was part of the reason I chose surgery as a specialty. Unconscious patients didn't need nurturing. 14 year old children did.

So the faults were my own. And what of these faults had I passed on to Craig? Would he explode in anger at girlfriends, his wife, his children? I hoped not. I hoped he had enough of Julia's gentle nature to prevent that, and perhaps Joey's example could make up for the rest. I wanted him to be successful, happy, all the things he deserved to be despite the roadblock of the abuse. Despite the mistakes I've made.

Strip mall, music stores, advertised teachers. I headed in, feeling old to be studying any discipline now but no matter. I had to. I'd given myself no choice.

"Can I help you, sir?" the store clerk said to me. He was skinny, delicate boned, wearing a striped shirt with a collar.

"Yes. I need a guitar teacher,"

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

My guitar teacher, a balding man named Marty, was soft spoken and expressive. We scheduled lessons, three a week.

"New hobby?" he said, and I nodded. It was something like that. He gave me exercises to practice, some easy songs to get me going. I held these like I had held my medical textbooks in college, knowing that they were my future.

Craig. I shook my head, walking back to my hotel. How I had fucked up. It was unbelievable, really. I thought I would have been smarter than that. I really thought so.

I closed myself in my hotel room and started playing. I played all the chord exercises and all the songs I knew, the new one Marty had taught me. I played until my fingers bled. I was going to do this. Play guitar, become at least technically expert. Join a band. Play gigs and survive on that money. That way I could be off the radar. I could stay dead to Craig so he could live, so he could heal and be whole.


	5. Chapter 5

I played the guitar hours a day. It began to take on the comforting lull of routine, of something I didn't need to think about. I needed something to comfort me.

I accepted the fact that I'd think about Craig. Of course I would. I thought about him tied up in the disappointment in myself. What was more important than being a father? And I had screwed it up.

I had said to him that night outside the restaurant, "you always screw up," and I'd meant it when I said it. I meant all the times he was late and he lied, all the times he disobeyed. The anger in his gaze, the tears in his eyes, we were not connecting. We'd never connect again. He threw it back at me, that I was the one who screwed up. He was right.

Hotel rooms, laying low, practicing chords and scales and simple songs, intermediate songs. Gliding toward the complex and the complicated songs, Marty impressed with my progress. Of course he was. When the full power of my intellect shone upon some endeavor everyone was impressed.

I got contact lenses and hair dye, blond. It wasn't exactly a disguise. I liked looking in the mirror and seeing a different version of myself. This person had never taken a belt to his son, had never caused the sharp fear and the pleading, pleading I could still hear on the edges of sleep and when I woke up, not fully conscious, 'please, dad, no, please, I'm sorry…'

I walked to my lesson, the guitar in its case. I walked everywhere, took public transportation. Maybe I should get a car. It wasn't clear so I didn't. Traveled from one hotel to the next, each one just a bit closer to Vancouver. I was staying here for my lessons with Marty, his faded blue eyes resting on the notes on the page, his fingers skillfully picking them out on the strings. I was waiting until I'd wrung everything out of Marty that I could, every last bit of knowledge in my newly chosen profession.

The time to move on had come, and I thanked Marty and paid him. He nodded at me, a benevolent smile on his face. I ducked my blond head, blinked around my new contact lenses. What was Craig doing now? The thoughts of him came out of the blue, came at me like birds in a Hitchcock movie. I picked up my guitar and moved on.

Nights in the hotel rooms were the worst. Nothing to do, the guitar feeling heavy in my hands. I smoothed the thin material of the bedspread with my hands, clicked through the channels of nothing to watch. I was all alone with myself, but that was the lot I'd chosen.

Time to go to Vancouver. I took the bus, slept in the gentle back and forth motion as it ate up the road from Toronto to the west coast. Pacific sunsets, soft air, the landscape indescribably changed. It was time to go. I couldn't risk seeing Craig.

I was proficient enough at the guitar to play in a band, and upon arrival in Vancouver I set about finding one. I'd hardly talked to anyone since I'd left Craig that night, just hotel clerks and Marty. It might be nice to build relationships again, to bridge the silence between me and the world. It might be nice.

I wandered out into the streets filled with fliers tacked to street lights, little pleas for roommates or dog walkers and multiple tabs of the same phone number fringing away from the papers like a little skirt. Among these I saw the plea for a guitarist and I ripped off the tab with the phone number and tucked it into the pocket of my leather coat.

Wandering. This was something I had never done in my previous life of scalpels and patient appointments. Then, I had been focused, directed, goal oriented. I felt the wind in my bottle blond hair, grabbing at the gelled edges. My internal jury was still out about wandering. Just going where the tide or the breeze took me, it was almost disorienting. Being dead did seem to have certain freedoms.


	6. Chapter 6

I had found a band of serious musicians, and for that I was grateful. They were much younger than me, the lead singer and the bass player and the drummer, all in their early to mid-twenties. That was okay. I played my guitar almost every second of the day, holding onto it like I used to cling to my medical text books, to my college and high school text books. I was always far more comfortable in the world of words, of exercises, of things to do, instead of people. I wanted these new band mates to think I was just a serious musician, when the truth was I was serious period. About whatever I chose. It was people who threw me for a loop. People. My wife, my son, I couldn't deal with them, couldn't relate to them, couldn't understand what they wanted and needed from me. That was the issue I had to deal with. I didn't understand people. Songs, notes, the scales and the math of music, this I could understand.

"What band were you with before?" Jimmy, the lead singer, asked me at practice one day. I had just re-dyed my hair that morning, and it was lighter than before, nearing platinum. I liked it. Liked anything that separated me more and more from Albert Manning, surgeon, abusive father, abusive husband. I was starting to hate him just as Craig probably did.

Jimmy was skinny, his body like rubber, contorting any which way on stage. His hair was naturally dark and kind of long, hanging in straight sheets on the sides of his head. Sometimes Jimmy had a goatee, or a full beard, or he shaved. His ear lobes had those thick circle piercing-s like some tribal thing, modern savage look.

"None. This is my first band," I said, glancing at him, plucking the strings of my guitar. My fingers had build up calluses now.

"Seriously, man? Your first one, but you're so good…" I smiled at that off hand compliment. What would Jimmy say if I told him I was a surgeon? With my platinum dyed hair and nose ring, the spike that ran through my earlobe, the rope choker necklaces I wore and the occasional eyeliner, he'd never believe me. I had a hard time believing it myself.

"Well, I came to it late," I said, and that was that. We had a new song to work on, and we had to wait for the bass player, a young man named Mitch who I suspected had a drug problem. I understood recreational use, but I was still a doctor and recognized the signs in Mitch. I thought we'd be replacing him before long. Jimmy didn't suspect this at all, would call Mitch like he was still connected to this world. It was sad, because it seemed to me that Jimmy and Mitch were good friends, and part of Jimmy's denial came from the optimism of this friendship.

We waited and waited for Mitch. Mitch was a natural blond with pale blue eyes, and just lately he'd lost weight. Jimmy had a vaguely worried look, and I noted it, knew it was normal. I played on, not really caring about Mitch except in how he was effecting the band. Next time I saw him I'd suggest a methadone program. I was pretty sure he was using heroin. If that didn't save him, well, there were other bass players, I knew. Everyone was replaceable.

At our next practice Mitch arrived, looking sleepless and irritable. Jimmy had a half relieved, half frantic look, and I suspected that their friendship was deeper, perhaps it was a friendship from childhood. I wondered if Jimmy would be able to survive in the band if Mitch was gone. I wasn't enjoying the turbulence of the musician's life. I wanted one dependable band and I wanted to play my guitar and not have to think. It only hurt when I remembered.

We had a gig. It was modest, a small club, and I played my part, looking out into the sea of kids just barely older than Craig. Always my thoughts went back to him, and I hoped he had been able to put some closure to our relationship. I hoped he had salvaged what he could from his association with me. I felt toxic.

Backstage, after a gig, it was the one time I allowed myself to relax. Sometimes I felt the adrenaline rush of being onstage, but mostly I was numb. I knew I was technically proficient at the guitar now, and my style was unobtrusive. Jimmy was the shining focus of this band. I had purposely looked to be in a band with a strong front man, one who would willingly take all the attention. I didn't want any attention. Didn't want to get signed to a record label or God forbid become famous. I couldn't let that happen. If my band became too successful I'd be forced to leave them.


End file.
